QoS Policing and Configuration

Well I'm nearing the end of the very last chapter of CVoice and after this week everything I study will be review until the test date which I haven't scheduled quite yet. I still have about 20 hours worth of CVoice video material I'm going to go through along with a review guide along with my Mnemosyne before I schedule the test and plunk down $150 bucks.

The last chapter was QoS Policing and configuration which wasn't quite as dreadful as I thought it was going to be. I think that's mainly because there's not a lot of detail you can put into 1-2 chapters compared to the previous CCVP which had a whole book and exam dedicated towards it! The picture above shows one of the token bucket configurations used in CIR (Committed information Rate) when trying to manage/police data traffic sent from CPE to the LEC.

There have been a lack of updates on the blog due to the crazy dead lines and traveling that I've been doing as of late. Sometimes I don't really get to study until 8pm or so which leaves me a dead tired (too lazy) to post a topic. I'm still at it though and I plan on keeping at the pace I'm at throughout the rest of this year unless life happens, which it usually does.

About Ready to take the CVoice Test

I'm away from home still so I haven't been able to study like I want; however I've been watching IPExpert videos and finishing up the last few chapters in the Cvoice book. When I get home next week, I will finish up the last QoS chapter, and then start reviewing preparing on my first take on my path to CCNP: Voice

Configuring Digit Manipulation

Spent about 3-4 hours labbing many different call routing scenarios and testing out as many technologies as I can. Along with cleaning up and configuring some high availability scenarios between both my HQ and Branch site in case the WAN goes down. I also setup correct caller-id information over PSTN so instead of just sending out the extension CLID (Caller-id) info it prefixes the area code and CO code as well.

Tomorrow will be another long session, going to deep dive into TEHO, site-codes, Toll-Free Bypass, and if I have time basic over of Class of Restriction (COR) but I'm betting I'll be worn out by time I get to that section.

I want to knock out the rest of this chapter before my employer ships me out to Houston, TX to begin provisioning our new remote DR site. I'll be out there for at least two weeks and I'm afraid I'm going to loose momentum if I can't get good lab time in so I want to get to the upcoming theory chapters ASAP. Thankfully I'll have plenty of IPExpert videos to go through and if I time it right I should be able to complete the Gatekeeper and first QoS chapter while I'm away.

70 Hours Completed

Well I think I finally put in at least 60 hours total studying over the past 5-6 weeks. I'll probably be about ready to sit for this test about 60 more hours in. I'm 450 pages into my CVoice book currently on Chapter 5 and I went through at least 10 hours worth of training videos so really I probably put about 70 hours in. I finally received the IPExpert videos so I'm going to go through those and try to lab what I can with the exercises they provide. I went through the older CBTNuggets material and a lot of Kevin Wallace material. I'm also still creating and going through my Mnemosyne's, I have over 115 flash card questions now.

My current phone network is about 80% complete, I can call from one site to the other via the WAN but not the PSTN yet. Also I haven't configured my branch site to make calls through the PSTN but everything is good on the HQ and the PSTN (plus vice versa). I'll be testing and throwing up voice translation profiles/rules on my branch router tomorrow. Voice Translations always give me a headache looking at the syntax ever since I first encountered them in CCNA: Voice. I'm going to be diving deep into this until I can wrap my head around the common regular expressions:

My IP Phones are Finally Alive!

I finally configured basic DN's for my IP Phones on both my HQ and my Branch router. I also configured a simple VoIP dial-peer so that I can place calls between the two sites. I can even dial my analog phone at the HQ site from all of IP Phone too without any issues. I'll be wrapping up Chapter 3 in the CVoice book by this weekend and then it's on to the Dial Plan chapters. I'll be configuring my PSTN router to emulate the PSTN finally as well. I'm estimating that I'm about 50 hours deep into my studies so far. Probably another 70 hours or so in and I'll probably be at the point were I'm prepping to sit for my first ever Cisco Professional level exam!

Two Weeks of HE Double Hockey Sticks!

Well about halfway into my studies for CVoice, it hit me that I didn't have near enough flash memory (only had 64MB) to install both IOS 15 and CME 8.x. So I went on a long, I mean long hunt to find Compact Flash that would work with my routers. I even contacted a Cisco Engineer Manager in my local area to see if there was any official memory I could borrow but with no luck. I needed at least 256MB, I went to at least 3 different local chains like Target and Best Buy but they just don't sell CPFlash any more.

I searched my office some more and found a decommisioned router that actually had a 1 GB CPFlash SanDisk card in it but the tab to eject the flash card was broke so I used a flat head screw driver and pretty much destroyed the card when I finally got it out. I finally hit eBay and plunked down a little money and I was able to to get two 256MB cards that actually worked!

I spent my entire study session today (3 hours) getting the new flash cards installed with IOS 15 along with CME 8.0 and very basic phone info. I of course hit a few snags but it wasn't too horrible now that I'm looking back on it. I didn't want to go to far in the book without getting CME configured so I spent a lot of my days catching up on CVoice videos I had which helped re-enforce a lot of the topics I've learned so far. I of course did my Mnemosyne's as well. If you look above you'll see a successfully registered 7940 phone.

CME Overview and Basic Lab Configuration

I went over the first dozen pages that gave a very high level overview of CME. I spent most of my time prepping my CCNP: Voice lab with basic network configuration. I created the voice/data vlan's, assigned IP's, configured router-on-a-stick, DHCP, and etc. I also spent a lot of time figuring out how I'm going to get CME onto my routers. I don't have near enough flash so I'm going to go ahead and see if I can purchase some at a local store. 64MB just won't cut it, especially when the IOS version 15 takes up 50MB alone! I have most of the bare bones configuration I need so once I have the flash installing CME 8.x will be a breeze...hopefully.